


Meanwhile, back on the boat

by neensz



Series: fisher'verse [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:24:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4795967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neensz/pseuds/neensz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's happening up north when Merlin and Arthur are at the airport?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meanwhile, back on the boat

**Author's Note:**

> More stuff moved over from LJ. Think I might write a few ficlets for this 'verse the next time I'm stuck over on Epic X :D

Gaius pressed a supporting hand to his aching back as he straightened up. He sure could have used that damn fool’s help getting the  _Excalibur_ shipshape after this disaster of a season, but there wasn’t much the idiot would have been able to do to help with a dislocated shoulder, so it was just as well Gaius had decided to send him on home early. Knowing his nephew, he would have helped anyway, and gotten himself taken out of the running for the Opie season this February, which was where the big money was. No, it was a good decision to send him home early.

The greenhorn stumbled back on deck, and Gaius didn’t hide a scowl. He’d taken a chance on his last two greenies, taken on kids everyone said wouldn’t work out, delicate little Guinevere and weedy, geeky Merlin, and had gotten two of the best deckhands he’d ever had out of the bargain. Third time, however, was not a charm. When Gwen had bowed out last minute (cussing like a sailor over the scratchy connection between Alabama and Nebraska, where she’d been stuck caring for her sick father over the summer) Gaius had decided to keep on with what had worked out for him before, and hired on the least likely looking candidate who’d approached him.

Valient might be a perfectly fine person, somewhere deep inside (though Gaius heartily doubted it), but he definitely wasn’t made to be on the water. It wasn’t the seasickness, everyone found themselves leaning over the rail at one time or another, and it was something you worked through and got over. The boy was lazy, and worse than lazy, felt like the universe owed him something (something that he shouldn’t have to work for). He complained, and dragged his heels, and half-assed every job he was assigned.

Gaius blew out a breath and looked over the boat, letting his eyes skim over Val for the moment like he wasn’t even there. The _Excalibur_ looked good—he’d had to do more of the work than he’d liked, but it was done now. And Gwen was coming back next season, so he wouldn’t have to deal with this little asshole again. That was something he looked forward to telling Val as soon as he’d got a couple drinks in him to dull his back’s complaints, so he could savor the expression on Val’s face all the better.

“Done. Grab your gear, Val, we’ll have a couple at the Fisherman’s Bar before I drop you off at the airport.” Dumping the guy twenty miles across the tundra at the closest airport after firing him sounded like the worst drive of his life, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the kid knifing him in his sleep like he would if he stayed the night on the boat after that discussion. Not that Gaius thought Val had the balls for something like that, but drink did strange things to a man’s head.

<><   ><>   <><   ><>

“You’re firing me? You can’t fire me, you senile jackass, I quit.” Val pushed away from the bar and stalked over to a booth where some deckhands around his age were gathered. Gaius took another slow sip of his scotch, savoring the smoky burn of it, and didn’t try to suppress a grin. That was done and sorted and less explosive than he’d feared.

Lance the bartender smirked back across the bar at him. “Hard worker?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Hardly,” Gaius snorted. “He were one of those thought the world owed him sommat.”

Lance nodded wisely and opened his mouth to reply, but–

“…don’t know how much that crazy old man thinks he’s gonna make with a _fag_ and a _girl_ his only deckhands next year.”

The bar quieted.

Gaius calmly set his Scotch down on the bar and pushed himself to his feet. Lance watched him go and didn’t try to stop him.

Val’s back was tense when Gaius approached him. Even though he couldn’t see behind him, the atmosphere of the bar had let even him know he’d said something that’d marked him.

Merlin and Gwen weren’t the best loved commercial fishermen in the state, obviously, but they’d earned the respect of their peers through hard work, blood, and sweat; more importantly with their fists, in little bars just like this one all up and down the Alaskan coast.

“More than I made with your help,” Gaius spun Val around with a firm hand on his shoulder and laid him out with a strong left hook to the jaw.

The deckhands Val had been talking to made no move to escalate things into a bar brawl, just lunging to save their drinks when Val slumped onto the table. Gaius eyed them, and one of them, silently elected spokesperson by the rest, spoke up. “If I’ve got something to say to Marlin,” meaning Merlin, Gaius assumed, vaguely remembering something about Merlin ‘earning’ a nickname the last time he’d started a bar brawl (he’d say one thing for his nephew—he was a scrappy little bastard), “I’ll say it to his face, when he’s healed up and we can have a proper discussion; not whisper it behind his back like a coward.”

One of the others piped up, “And I ain’t never gonna say shit about Gwen, behind her back nor to her face. Chick is damn scary, man. Knows, like, karate and shit.” The cronies around the table nodded, whether to Idiot Number One’s point or to Idiot Number Two’s, Gaius didn’t care.

He gave the table a nod and took himself back to the bar, where Lance had refreshed his drink. He rubbed the bruises on his knuckles he could already feel coming up. Figures he’d managed to hit the asshole right on the bone—at least he didn’t have to deal with him anymore, or ever again. No one would look askance at him making the man find his own way to the airport, not now. The Lord had definitely opened a window for Gaius today—and the balcony outside was beautiful.


End file.
